Ramming ATM nets prison sentence

Drugs, alcohol blamed for driving truck into store.

Drugs, alcohol blamed for driving truck into store.

December 09, 2006|CAROL DRAEGER Tribune Staff Writer

CASSOPOLIS -- When business owner Lynne Laubach saw the crime video of three men ramming a stolen truck into her store to reach an ATM, she equated it to a strike by a "suicide bomber." On Friday during sentencing of two of the three men charged in the crime, Laubach told a Cass County judge the destruction devastated the 14-year-old business that she and her husband, James, built. She said their lives will never be the same. In September, Thomas J. Holycross, 38, of South Bend, Ronald G. Polega, 32, of Niles, and Michael C. Melton, 31, of Buchanan, rammed a stolen pickup into the Laubachs' Phillips 66 Express Mart on Detroit Road near Niles. The building shook, said Cass County Prosecutor Victor Fitz, as Polega, the driver, repeatedly backed the truck into the stalwart ATM in a vain attempt to break it open. "It was a violent and barbaric act," said Fitz. He said that in the thieves' attempt to reach $1,300 inside the ATM, they caused nearly $52,000 in damage. They also crushed the Laubachs' business dream. "It was more than bricks and mortar, it was their life," Fitz told Judge Michael Dodge. Polega and Holycross said the rampage stemmed from alcohol and cocaine abuse. The two will spend between four and 20 years in prison. Dodge also ordered the men to pay $51,389.14 in restitution and damages to the building and the 1995 Dodge pickup. Polega apologized in court and blamed the botched ATM theft on drug abuse. The men were swiftly arrested after the damaged vehicle broke down on Michigan 60, about two miles north of the Express Mart, police said. The men ran from the vehicle as troopers from the Michigan State Police were already at the store reviewing the surveillance video, Fitz said. A motorist, who called 911 after spotting the truck by the store at 3:30 a.m., led to the men's quick capture. Fitz said crack cocaine was allegedly found in the defendants' vehicle at the time of the incident.